III. JUNE 1, 2002 ­ ISSAC AT THE WEST TAMPA CONVENTION CENTER

by Kevin Moore ©2002

I¹ve been to about 200 live Timba concerts and never experienced a hipper, more enthusiastic crowd, even in Cuba, than the one which greeted Issac at the West Tampa Convention Center. Most of the 800 + fans were Cuban, and most had probably heard Issac in Cuba as they knew all of the coros, even those which he plays live.

Even more impressive was the crowd¹s reaction to the material from the unreleased album, which accounted for almost half of the show. They were no doubt familiar with the Nueva Trova songs on which the new arrangements are based, but they also picked up the new coros and were singing along with them as if they¹d been hearing the song for years. And to a greater degree than crowds in Cuba and Miami, the Tampa Cubans were very openly enthusiastic and obviously euphoric to be hearing Issac.

The Tampa show featured an exciting new opening that I¹ve never seen Issac use. Unannounced, lead trumpeter Orlando Vásquez walked onto stage alone, playing an unaccompanied solo, and was then joined by each of the other bandmembers in turn with the improvised musical structure changing as new players entered the fray. They didn¹t use this opening the next day, but hopefully they will in Oakland as it would be very interesting to see how it varies from show to show. This led to a beautiful version of "Malecón", one of the best songs from "La fórmula". The reaction was so strong to the new material from "Versos en el aire" that Issac mixed it in liberally with older hits like "Solar de la California", "La Sandunguita", "Pregón del chocolate" and the evening¹s climax, "Deja que Roberto te toque" into "Carnaval".

About halfway through the show Haila came out, in top form, to sing two songs from "Haila" plus "Yo no me parezco a nadie". This classic song, written by Leonel Limonta, was the breakthough hit for Bamboleo and the title track of their second album. When Haila and Limonta left to form Azúcar Negra, they kept the song as their closing number and gave it a new and even more riveting arrangement. Issac¹s band played it very close to the Azúcar Negra version, but with some exciting creative changes to the piano tumbaos courtesy of Rolando.

There¹s a key point about halfway through "Yo no me parezco" when Haila yells "¡rómpelo!" to introduce a brief but always fiery conga solo, set against a series of bloques played by the rest of the band. This part was tailor-made for Papacho, who played it brilliant both this night and the next. My sense is that Issac will change the set list pretty drastically from night to night, but "Yo no me parezco" is likely to be included every night as the climax of Haila's segment.